


Kanaya: Caring Comes Easy

by BlameMyMuses



Series: Apotheosis [8]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Homestuck
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Government Experimentation, Memory Loss, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 17:36:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14753313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlameMyMuses/pseuds/BlameMyMuses
Summary: Kanaya finds a boy hiding behind a dumpster. She is not nearly as surprised by him as she should be.





	Kanaya: Caring Comes Easy

**Author's Note:**

> It's been ages since I updated this series, and I'm so sorry for the massive delay. If this is your first time reading Apotheosis, please start at the beginning, not with this fic, because otherwise you might be confused! (You might be confused, anyway, but this is the fic where things begin to weave together a bit more, so better not to start with it.)

When you first meet him (Again) he’s a shivery skinny wreck of a boy, hiding behind a dumpster, and ashen with hunger and fear.

Your first instinct is (Has Always Been) to take care of him.

***

You approach carefully, not sure (At First) why you feel so compelled to help him. You’re strangers, after all, and he’s dirty and scowling and not at all approachable, and you are a young lady, walking home alone, and all good sense says not to go near him.

And yet…

Well, he’s never made himself approachable before, why would now be any different?

You stop in front of him, just outside of lunging distance, on the off chance that you’ve made a very poor life choice.

“Do you need help?” you ask, because you can’t think how to phrase it more delicately.

His face jerks up, eyebrows still drawn in, teeth flashing in an animalistic snarl, head angled strangely, like he means to ram you with it. You have never seen anyone’s expression change so quickly, however, when he sees your face.

You take a step back, but do not run.

“I…” He swallows so hard you can see the knot of his throat rise and fall like an empire. “…yeah,” he says finally. “I think I need help.”

(Admitting That Has Never Been Easy For Him.)

***

He is around your age, you decide (No; You Know). Fifteen or sixteen, and scrawny, like he’s been sick for a long while, or wasn’t fed properly.

You take him home, hide him in your garden shed, and sneak dinner out to him after your parents have gone to sleep for the night. He seems entirely unfamiliar with the concept of table manners, but that’s okay, because there isn’t a table in the garden shed, anyway.

When he finally starts to slow down, you think to ask his name.

His eyes shutter, something behind them goes dim, and you wonder if he’d thought you… No, that’s ridiculous. It’s almost as if he expected you to already know it…?

“Well, my name is—”

“I know what it is,” he says, and it’s almost the first thing he’s said since you found him. You blink at him.

“Really? I can’t say that we’ve ever met before.”

(Not In This Life, Anyway. He Is _So_ Familiar…)

“Not in this life, no,” he says, echoing your thoughts. You feel the uncanniness thrum through you like a plucked string, and try not to let him know you are ruffled.

“I need something besides ‘hey you’ to call you,” you say, and a bit of the apprehension makes it through anyway.

“…you can call me by my ancestor’s title, I guess,” he says. Everything in his tone says he feels put-upon, irritated.

“I thought ancestors were—” you begin, gently, familiarly mocking, but you stop yourself, not sure why you had been about to say that…

“-were highblood nonsense?” he asks.

You look at him, eyes wide, because yes. Yes, that is what you’d nearly said, but it made no sense? So how could he have guessed…?

“’Sufferer,’ for now, then,” he says, and it’s disappointed and lonely and you remember how he’d been after his… You lose the word, remember only a vague idea about paleness, and wonder why.

Something about ashes, something about romance novels. You used to watch films together and he’d rant and critique, and you’d enjoyed the costuming despite the mediocre love stories and hate stories…

He watches as you flounder through memories, picking them apart like stitches, trying to understand.

You can’t do it, and he sees it in your face, and sighs.

He sounds broken. Tired, and so alone, and you reach out even though he’s dirty and smells like dumpster still.

Soft hands, dainty and neat on his ragged ones. You run gentle fingers over split knuckles. The pads of your fingers trace over the calluses on his palms, and what he really needs is a heap of fabric and cheesy novels to fall back into and just relax and talk about his problems in…

Pale. The feeling is so lovely and soft and tender, and nothing at all like the usual mild irritation you feel at…everyone. To lose this, even a sad, one-sided version…

(You Can Understand Why Karkat Might Have Been So—)

Your eyes shoot up to his. They’d been grey last time you’d seen them. He’d been grey. All grey and black, and just flecks of red trying to burn through, trying to tell the secret he’d kept so close…

In your hands, you can feel the pulse in his wrists begin to hammer.

“Oh,” you say. It isn’t what you want to say, but it rather sums up the feelings that are sweeping over you.

He doesn’t respond, is just. Waiting. Hoping and fearful. You think he knows you’ve remembered…something…but isn’t sure what.

You’re not entirely sure what it is you’ve remembered either, but there was the cold of space and stone, and dear ones, and terror and pain and fighting and victory and then.

Nothing.

You’re panicking (But Only Deep Down), and you think he’s been panicking worse, and for longer. He was behind a dumpster, for the mothergrub’s sake.

You reach out, and are embarrassed and trembling, but it is surprisingly simple, an easy thing, to just place your palm against his cheek. To rub your thumb over the sharpness of his cheekbone. You keep one hand on his wrist, at his pulse, and feel it pound harder -- then calm.

“Shoosh,” you say. The hand on his face moves up into his hair. Your nails are clean and polished, painted jade green, and they contrast with the dirty black of his hair like they were always meant to be there.

You don’t think it’s serendipity, but…maybe it _is_ serendipitous.

His tears, as they start to come, are still a violent mutant red, and you start to have some idea of why he’d been hiding in that alley.

“Poor Karkat,” you murmur, drawing him close.

“Can’t catch a fucking break,” he mumbles into your blouse. It’s white, and he’s getting dirt and snot on it, and instead of annoyance you feel a shimmery Warm Bath With Bubbles kind of joy, a Fine Silks And Velvets sense of purpose.

You’re not an alchemist—you prefer to use your own hands for important works—but you know your myths and legends, you have had a good education and knew a few kids who wanted to be State Alchemists when they grew up. You have a suspicion about those red tears, and you won’t ever voice it aloud, not for jewels or fame or money.

He _did_ need your help. (He Always Had.) You hold him out away from you, hands on his shoulders. You’re still taller than him, even sitting on the floor of the garden shed as you are.

“Tell me what I can do to help,” you say, firm and in control, because he needs someone to stay grounded while he loses his shit.

He sniffles, wipes at his face where the red has streaked it. It flakes like dried blood, and vanishes before it hits the ground.

“I’m…something dangerous,” he says. He won’t name it either. “And I think we need to find the others, because, Kanaya, I have _seen some shit_ , and the State is doing something seriously fucked up, and I’m not… I can’t do it on my own.”

“You never could,” you tell him, and he grimaces, but moirails should tell each other even unpleasant truths. (Is That What You Are? You Hope…)

“I know where some of them are,” he admits.

“The humans?” you ask, even though here and now, on the surface at least, you are all human.

(You Aren’t Human Where It Matters. Even If The Concept Of Quadrants Is Still Blurry And Only Half-Remembered. At Least You Are _Starting_ To Remember.)

“No sign, yet, but it’s only a matter of time. There’s…” he pauses, looks at you nervously.

“Karkat, please?” you say. “Let me help?”

“There’s a pulse,” he admits at last. “I think I can follow it. I don’t know what’s at the other end, but…”

You stand and smooth your skirt. “I shall fetch us provisions. You should sleep. Humans sleep at night. We’ll be less noticeable traveling by daylight, I believe. Anyway, the trains aren’t running this late.” You think for a moment, then nod, grim and chronically helpful as you’ve always been.

“We’ll leave tomorrow morning. I’m supposed to have piano lessons at ten. We’ll go to the station instead, and then out of South City. Where are we heading?”

“East,” he says at once. “To the desert. The pulse is closest there, but getting further. We have to hurry.”

“Sleep, Karkat,” you say, and he nods already yawning. You wait until he’s snoring before returning to the house, and beginning to pack.

It’s one nice thing about being human, anyway. No one minds terribly much, if you care about one another. And you do. So much.

You always have.

You glance at your sewing machine and smile, and then sit to make yourselves hoods and cloaks for the journey. For old times’ sake.

**Author's Note:**

> Next time is Roxy, I think! Thanks for reading!


End file.
